You are here

Jez Stewart

Jez Stewart is a curator at the BFI National Archive, responsible for the animation collection. His blogs explore the rich seam of British animation history, from the 1900s to the present. He is currently working on the accession of two large historical collections, from Halas & Batchelor and Bob Godfrey Films, but is also actively seeking contemporary production for preservation.

Jez has worked at the BFI since 2001 as part of the non-fiction team, and has done extensive research into the BFI’s holdings of cinema and television advertising. His interest in animation overlaps with his passion for comics and illustration, but he personally struggles with anything more than stick figures.

From ‘vandalised celluloid’ to a top-prize-winner co-credited to its own misdirected software, Bristol’s state-of-the-art showcase found British and international animation bulging with ideas, beauty… and its antithesis, reports Jez Stewart.

It was a year rich in features – but even more so in short-form films, if only you could see them. Chris Robinson, Alex Dudok de Wit and Jez Stewart uncover the gems crying out for a place on the bill at your local cinema.

Beyond the likes of Inside Out and Song of the Sea, innovation in animation continued to take place at the shorts end of the scale. Our three critics round up their international highlights of the year.

Jez Stewart on the atavistic native visions at Bristol this year, from Richard Williams’ hand-drawn rendition of ancient-Greek warfare to an EDL dad, a neanderthal id, a sad young wool-mation cannibal and an anachronistic woolly mammoth.